Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
1 Timothy 1:1-11, Myths, endless genealogies and would-be teachers of the law
Paul greets Timothy, whom he left in Ephesus, and tells him to stop certain people teaching strange doctrines and spending themselves on myths and endless genealogies; they want to be teachers of the law without understanding it, while the law is meant for the lawless.
1 Timothy 1:1-11, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul writes to Timothy, whom he left in Ephesus to stop certain people from spreading strange teaching and getting lost in myths and endless family trees. The aim of his instruction is love that comes from a clean heart, a clear conscience and real faith. These would-be teachers of the law do not understand it, Paul says, because the law exists to restrain wrongdoers, and he lists the kinds he means. Who wrote this letter, and what exactly the opponents taught, are both debated.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/letters-of-recommendation\/","n":"Letters of recommendation","s":"A traveler often carried a letter from someone his hosts trusted, vouching for him and asking them to receive him. Such letters opened homes, synagogues and churches.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/genealogies\/","n":"Family trees, myths and genealogies","s":"Lists of ancestors that proved who you were: a true Israelite, a priest, an heir of David. Matthew opens with one. Some teachers also spun stories and family trees out of the Bible's lists, which 1 Timothy calls myths and endless genealogies.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/teachers-of-the-law\/","n":"Teachers of the law","s":"Trained experts in the law of Moses, also called scribes, some local and some from Jerusalem, who taught by citing earlier teachers.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sages-and-philosophers\/","n":"Philosophers and their schools","s":"Stoics, Epicureans and other schools taught a whole way of life in lecture halls and marketplaces. A traveling teacher with a message about God would be heard, and judged, as one more philosopher.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/slavery\/","n":"Slavery and slave managers","s":"Slaves were everywhere in the Roman world, from field hands to stewards who ran whole estates and handled their master's money. A master away and slaves left in charge was a familiar story.","r":""}
Authorship is disputed more than for any other letter of Paul (Keener). Carson, Moo and Morris report that most critics credit a later admirer, citing vocabulary (306 words absent from Paul's ten letters, on P. N. Harrison's count), style, church order and the heresy; they reply that on those figures the three letters differ from one another as much as from Paul, and that "there is no evidence that the church accepted any pseudonymous epistle". These verses show the problem: Moule judged 1:8-9 impossible for Paul, while Zahn cited them for him. Keener and the ESV and CSB Study Bibles argue for Paul; Wright and Bird print Dunn's view against. In Paul for Everyone Wright notes that writing in another's name was common and need not be forgery, but will "leave the question open", as this guide does. If Paul's, the date is about AD 62 to 66; Robinson's AD 55 has convinced few; deniers date the letters after AD 100 (Keener; Carson, Moo and Morris). The opponents' teaching is read as law-based self-denial (Keener), heading toward Gnosticism (Wright and Bird), or unidentifiable (the ESV Study Bible), and full Gnosticism came well into the second century (Carson, Moo and Morris).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to 1 Timothy (Authorship, Situation, Date), and on 1 Timothy 1:2, 1:4 and 1:7
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 1 Timothy 1:4
- ESV Study Bible, Introduction to 1 Timothy, Author and Title, and study note on 1 Timothy 1:4
- CSB Study Bible, Introduction to 1 Timothy, Author
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 23, The Pastoral Epistles: Authorship, Date and Opponents
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 15, The Pastoral Epistles: Their Relationship to Other Pauline Epistles, Vocabulary, Theology, Pseudonymity, The False Teachers, 1 Timothy (Date)
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Pastoral Letters, comment on 1 Timothy 1:1-7
